Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Thursday, August 06, 2009

Gallery (click any photo to view the gallery)

Children created self-portraits during a two-day workshop at Deep Springs Elementary's summer camp.

A fleet of giant paper airplanes rested on a makeshift runway while boys and girls huddled around worktables busily coloring self-portraits – adding such details as glasses, pigtails, necklaces and eyelashes.

The flurry of creativity was more than just summer fun. At its core, it was a lesson in storytelling for nearly 20 students attending summer camp at Deep Springs Elementary.

“Reading and writing are partners in literacy,” said Harrison Elementary art teacher Jeffery Hale, who led the two-day workshop. “Now I’m realizing that kids first learn to draw, and drawing can help them become better writers. So I’m making that connection.”

For the past three summers, Hale has participated in camp at Deep Springs, where he once was a student-teacher. This time, he guided the kids through reading lessons, narrative artwork and writing activities. Once children discover they can tell stories with their pictures, it’s a natural leap to writing, he said.

“We drew pictures of our houses and told five things about them,” explained fourth-grader Trenton Karr-Paepke, who pointed out their artwork on a nearby wall. The kids mentioned things like swimming pools and Barbie dolls on handwritten lists of what they like about home.

Though he had just four hours total with the students, Hale was intent on imparting both a love of writing and a sense of empathy. He anchored the workshop with a book called “Fly Away Home.”

“It was about a little boy who was homeless, and his mother died,” said third-grader Royal Mayes.

In the first session, the kids filled neon pink Post-it notes with words like “sad,” “lonely” and “angry” to describe the boy, who lived with his father in an airport.

“The second day was about Andrew and how we’d feel if we were homeless like him,” said fourth-grader Chelsea Wafford.

Hale noted how the kids’ comfort level grew and their writing expanded overnight from simple words to complete sentences like “I feel left out.” In the closing exercise, they shared again – this time offering up more advanced words like “worried,” “confused,” “upset” and “depressed.”

“If they can write about it, they can understand,” said Hale, who wove in art lessons as the kids created two-dimensional houses and 3-D airplanes during the workshop.